Hey, Wanna Puck Around?

Sure, hockey’s popularity is no where near what it was before the lockout and after the NHL lost ESPN’s television contract.  But in many arenas around the country, fan involvement and attempt to appeal to as many people as possible is growing.  One way is with cheer leader/promo girls, glammed up, tanned, wearing really tight spandex and showing some skin.

I’ve been to many a hockey game, where scantily clad cheer leader types skate the ice during timeouts, bend over and scrape up the excess shavings with snow shovels.  Then later, they run through the stands doing promotions and contests, getting the fans involved.  Its fun for the whole family, unless you’re the wife of the guy that just won the autographed puck, and is being subsequently posed with by two girls that may work at Olympic Gardens in Las Vegas on the weekends.

In other instances, the half-naked promo-girl/cheerleaders run by shooting t-shirts from a potato gun into the crowd, and as the husband couldn’t help but take a gander at them, his wife said, “Don’t even think about it.” Other times, I’ve seen a man actually shoo the girls away, or even act appalled at their activities and wardrobe, if only to save face with his wife.  But I’ll give you 100-1 odds that he locked and loaded the mental image of those hotties on his cerebral hard drive, only to use it later to go home and make himself “go blind”.

Case in point, the link below (if the click doesn’t work, copy and paste it in your browser):

http://stars.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=711&id=47463

While you can enjoy the visuals, the music is even more filled with eroticism.  It reminds me of a movie I saw once.  There was a knock on the door, and a scantily clad woman of about 22 answers, only to find a plumber eating a sandwich.  The plumber is played by Ron Jeremy.  She immediately asked him if he has the pipe to fix her drain, to which he responds, “After you finish my sausage and meat balls”.  “I’m not really hungry”, the girl exclaims.  Jeremy tosses his sandwich over his shoulder, unzips his 1-piece coveralls and says, “I wasn’t talking about my sandwich”. The synthesized music only builds from here, and you can imagine what happens next.

Back to reality for a moment.  Is this really any different from cheer leaders in the NFL?  The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders don’t seem to acquire a whole lot of contempt…at least not that you ever hear about. Perhaps it’s the proximity and the interaction with the fans.  There are no boundaries or barriers any longer here.  With NFL cheerleaders, they are a good 60 feet away from the first section of the railing, and that’s when they aren’t close and watching the game.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here, during intermissions, the girls are running into the stands, taking pictures with fans and promoting their team.  And yes, that includes some touching.  However innocent the intent of the young ladies just doing their jobs- and it most certainly is innocent- the recruiting of more fans via way of the “flesh trade” is definitely up for debate.  The people on the conservative side of the argument will say that this is not supportive of the “family environment” a hockey game should embody.

While we respect the family that will go out and watch the greatest spectator sport in the world as a family outing, we say anyone who thought throwing the fam in the minivan and going out to the rink where you can subject your wife and kids to grown men bludgeoning each other with sticks, pucks, and fists, probably ought to have their idea of “family entertainment” re-examined.

So let the beautiful girls frolic.  Let them wear revealing clothing, and wield the almighty snow shovel.  Let the players pummel each other, lose teeth, and buy each other a beer after the fact.  We’re still going to keep coming out to the games.  And if some gratuitous violence and flesh are the only way you’ll get out there, then we support that.  Hopefully wifey and junior won’t mind, and even come around and understand that its just entertainment and an attempt at fan recruitment.  And if you can’t convince wifey, then we’re confident that you can convince junior.